The Grace Year: Autumn

I was a willful child, too curious for my own good, head in the clouds, lacking propriety...among other things.

I was a willful child, too curious for my own good, head in the clouds, lacking propriety...among other things.

All the women in Garner County have to wear their hair the same way, pulled back from the face, plaited down the back.

Though some were veiled, their hands told me everything I needed to know—cuticles picked raw with worry, nervous impulses flickering through cold fingertips—but they were full of promise...alive. And when they returned, the ones who returned, they were emaciated, weary...broken.

Apparently, the guards have found evidence of secret gatherings in the woods. Men's clothes hanging from branches, like an effigy.

Ever since my first bleed, I’ve gotten all kinds of unwanted advice. Most of it asinine, at best, but this is just plain mean.

The women believe the men’s veiling gathering in the barn to be a reverent affair, but there’s nothing reverent about it.

She gives me a winsome smile.

“Soon, you’ll have the most coveted position in the county, running the apothecary, taking your place as head of the council. People will listen to you. You’ll have real influence.” I attempt a simpering smile. “Which brings me to a tiny favor I’ve been meaning to ask.”

He usually isn't brazen enough to speak to me in public.

“We were supposed to fetch Father’s parcel at the apothecary, but...but—”
“We got waylaid.” Clara rescues her, giving me that confident grin.

Focusing in on the gate, I try to escape in my mind, but Mrs. Fallow’s measured steps, the swish of her underskirts, burrow their way into my senses, like the softest of death knells.

There’s a moment of silence that follows every hanging. Sometimes it feels like it stretches on forever, like they want us to dwell in it for as long as possible—dwell is the right word, to be domiciled, take up residence, to abide—but this time, it feels too short, like they don’t want us to really think about what just happened...how wrong it is.

Mr. Welk steps to the front, seemingly oblivious to the macabre sight of her corpse swaying gently behind him, or maybe in spite of it.

Mrs. Pearson, Tommy’s mother, beckons me over with a single wizened claw. She came back from her grace year missing the other four fingers on her right hand. Frostbite, I presume.

“Don’t be daft, if that were the case, she’d be dead by now,” another woman snaps.

A few of the women pull their plaits over their shoulders for comfort, but most avert their eyes, as if her shame might rub off on them. It’s not until she's safely tucked away in the front pew that they resume their vapid conversations.

“Don’t you look fetching in that blush-colored lace,” Kiersten says, toying with the edging on Gertrude’s sleeve.

Up until last year, Kiersten and Gertrude were inseparable, but all of that changed when Gertrude was charged with depravity. Since she still possessed a white ribbon, the details of her offense were kept hidden, but I think that made it all the worse. Our imaginations ran wild with what it could be.

As the hours tick by, and the refreshments disappear, the tension in the room is palpable.

Kiersten’s father is the first to step inside, his face a perfect portrait of maudlin hope.

“Sweet daughter,” he says as he eases the back of his hand over my cheek—the scratchy veil irritating my skin, his placating touch irritating me.

Raising the veil, I practice a demure, flaccid smile, over and over and over again until I’ve mastered something that can pass for pleasant.

She’s dying for me to notice her—the camellia precariously balanced between her delicate fingertips. A red camellia, the symbol of untethered passion, a flame within your heart.

The old-fashioned flower. The saccharine sentiment. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave the same bloom to his last three wives.

The susurration of the crowd behind me.

“Maybe I’ll be able to command the wind,” another girl says, spreading her arms out wide.
“Or be impervious to fire.” Meg runs her finger through a lick of flame.

“Yes. He’s a great man,” I murmur without inflection, wondering where she's going with this.

“Did she make me trip?”
I don’t want to give it any credence, but when my eyes veer up the path, I swear I catch the swish of Kiersten’s braid. The hint of a smile.

Placed at the foot of the tree, there’s a pile of smoldering remains, a string of sumac leaves encircling it like a lewd gesture.

Martha cringes as she peeks inside. “I think we found the privy.”
“Ashes,” I say without thinking. “If we put the ashes in the privy it will cut down the smell, help break it down.”

"Hurry up." Kiersten’s brusque voice pulls me back.

Swallowing my nerves, I force my way into the fray. “We just need to stay calm,” I say, but they’re paying me no mind. Two girls fighting over a bag of food bash into me; the burlap rips, sending a cascade of chestnuts spilling to the ground.

As I’m searching for my bundle, out of the corner of my eye, I see something sail over the fence. I turn to look, but all I find is Kiersten standing there, a priggish look on her face as a gaggle of girls hover around her trying, and failing, to stifle their laughter.

As we pry open the door to the small structure on the left, we discover a narrow space with shelves lining each side.
“This must be the larder,” Ravenna says.

Maybe we're just exhausted, but in this moment, it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. But the levity quickly dies when we realize how little they gave us in the way of supplies.

You’d think that would somehow bring us closer together, bind us in a common cause, but it feels tenuous at best, like there’s only a single silk thread connecting us—one false move, one false accusation, and everything will unravel.

A few pay attention—mostly girls who will be assigned this type of work upon their return, Helen, Martha, Lucy—but Kiersten and the rest of her followers seem annoyed that I’m even bothering them with something so mundane.

“You sound like a usurper,” Kiersten says. “Back in the county, they’d tie you to the iron tree and burn you alive.”

Pulling the red ribbon from her hair, she shakes her braid free, sending long tendrils of honeyed waves spilling over her shoulders. The girls seem to take in a collective breath, enamored and fearful of this wanton act. Other than our sisters, we’ve never seen a girl with her hair down before.

There’s something about it that makes me hold my breath, as if breathing it in might infect me with whatever they had, lead me to the same bitter end—just another stacked-up, mattress-less frame—a flaccid red ribbon nailed to the gate.

But isn’t that how every horrible thing begins? Slow. Insipid. A twisting of the screw.

“You have no idea what it’s like...being an outcast...being reviled.”

Back in the county, if you were accused of heresy, they didn’t even bother with the gallows. They just burned you alive.

“We’ve tried to help her, but she’s lost to us now. Anyone caught consorting with this heretic will be punished.”